Peony in Love by Lisa See
Author of the wonderful Snow Flower and the Secret Fan which I loved so I had to read this one too. This is about Peony who is 16, lives in China and is preparing to marry someone she's never met. When her father has an opera perform at their home, The Peony Pavilion, Peony secretly meets a man and falls in love with him. She is so eaten up with her love for this man that she can not bear to meet her fiance. This is a heartbreaking tale where Peony does a lot of maturing and seeing the world clearly, but only after it is too late. It was frustrating to read this, knowing how women were treated back then and seeing what Peony could not see. It was even depressing seeing how women were treated. From the start Peony was a disappointment to her family, she was their only child and a girl. It shocked me how quickly the family was willing to change Peony's name when it turned out her mother-in-law had the same name. And to put so little thought into a new name, calling her "Same." Horrible. All in all, it was a haunting tale but kept me it reading into the night.
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1 The Pox Party by MT Anderson
Won the National Book Award in 2006. Printz Honor book in 2007. First of a 2 book set this follows the life of Octavian, an African who was born in America. Octavian lives a life of luxury, he learns the violin, sings, reads Latin, learns history and math, and dresses in silks and wigs. His life is carefully monitored, he does not leave the house, and everything about him is recorded including the weight of his excrement. Soon Octavian finds out that his life is not what it seems when he breaks into the one room he is not allowed in. I don't want to give too much away in case someone wants to read this, but this book was weird. I'm still not sure what I feel about this book but I am leaning towards not liking it. I think the College of Lucidity where Octavian and his mother live is just too weird to be true, and the experiments they do there are absurd. I didn't really like how quickly Octavian seemed to adjust to his new life. For one so pampered it would be weird to be able to change that easily. I don't think I'm going to check out the second volume when it comes out. Overall I found the book boring and strange.
Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village by Laura Amy Schlitz
The 2008 Newbery winner. At a whopping 80 pages I read this one while hanging out in Joseph-Beth Booksellers. This is a book of monologues (and a couple of duets) set during the Medieval Ages. The speakers are all kids between the ages of 10-15, and they all live in the same village. There are plenty of illustrations and informative pages on topics such as the Crusades. What I find interesting about this book is that it was written by a librarian. The students at her school were studying Medieval times and were doing plays, none of the kids wanted a small part so Schlitz decided to write these monologues so that for 3 minutes every kid could be a star. Overall, the monologues are nice, the illustrations are gorgeous, and the informative pages are excellent, as are the side notes explaining words or ideas expressed in the monologues. I do think, however, that some of the dialogue is a little too advanced for elementary kids. It seemed like there were a lot of bad things happening (especially the one kid talking about how the village drowned his grandfather in the lake).
A Man Named Dave by Dave Pelzer
The conclusion to Pelzer's trilogy. This one covers the time period from when he left his foster home and joined the Air Force until he married his current wife. More inspirational I would say, Pelzer really shows how hard he tries to reach his goals, and he's constantly told he can't do something and he works hard enough to make it happen. He still struggles with the pain of what his mother did to him, still tries to find an answer to why she did it. I'd say it is a happy conclusion to his story, overall. While he struggles to not become his mother and to be a so-called "normal" person things look bleak. But in the end, he makes everything work out.
Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock
DJ lives on a dairy farm, her two older brothers are away at college and don't come home, her younger brother doesn't talk to anyone and her dad has a bad hip. So DJ does all the work on the farm herself until one day an old friend sends over Brian, a stuck-up lousy quarterback to help. Through a summer of working the farm, training with Brian and realizing that there are a lot of things her family doesn't say but should DJ realizes that she's got a lot to say, and says it. I immensely enjoyed this book. I was looking for a little bit of light, fun reading when I spotted this. It was funny and moving. But mostly funny. I enjoyed reading about DJ's life and her relationships and how she decided to do something no one expected and turned out to be really good at it. I'm looking forward to reading the next one, The Off Season.
...and Now Miguel by Joseph Krumgold
Won the Newbery Award in 1954. Krumgold was the first person to win the Newbery Award twice, first for this book and again in 1959 for Onion John. Miguel's family are sheep herders. Every summer they take the sheep up into the mountains for three months so they can graze and Miguel's biggest dream is to go with them. Miguel believes that he won't know who he is until he can go to the mountain with the other men, and he sets up a plan to prove that he is ready to go. A charming story, Miguel is stuck in the middle, not quite a man but no longer a child and has difficulties being either one. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this, how easy it was to read and how, even though there aren't too many sheep herders anymore, one would still be able to relate to Miguel's feelings. A lot of the older winners are boring and dry, but this one wasn't. I liked reading about how the sheep are taken care of and sheared; i found it interesting and engaging.
Newbery books read/out of: 49/86
